-:- little vision tricksters -:-
-:- beyond reality - dmt hyperspace and salvia beings -:-
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'I became aware of... presences... beside me... [They] resolved into three rippling presences, shimmering with reality waves. Three strangers, undulating into view, half obscured by my own eyes... half obscured by the... reality patterns. They come to see, it feels like they’ve come, not to make contact, but just to show themselves for a flicker of a moment, to see and be seen, then pass away again into the... whirling and strange enfoldments of space.'
Personal Salvia Divinorum experience
Among the Mazatec Indians of Mexico has long grown a plant of the sage family which possesses strong hallucinogenic power. The shamans of these people regularly drink a brew prepared from the leaves of the plant, which contain an entheogenic opioid called Salvinorin-A, and thus engage in healing ceremonies and shamanising for the benefit of the lay people. On account of this power, Salvia Divinorum, or ska maria pastora as the Mazatecs call it, has in recent years left the Mexican landscape and become somewhat popular among certain (generally Western) enthusiasts who use it for a wide range of purposes.
Similarly, in the Amazon, the widely used hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca (of which ebene, the virola snuff mentioned earlier, is an analog) is now gaining wider appeal, particularly on account of its active ingredient, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which takes the user on a whirlwind tour through the human visionary psyche into landscapes and experiences far beyond those understood by normal, 'consensus' realities.
It is through such historic shamanic tools, and in combination with the idealism of the New Age and the individualism of Western culture, that increasing numbers of people are making direct contact with exactly the kinds of spooks studied here and gaining something of an insight into what is seen as the sacred spook of the future.
In the years 1990 to 1995, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA, sponsored full clinical investigations into the psychological and neurological effects of DMT, the powerful hallucinogenic ingredient of ayahuasca and which is also found is measurable quantities within the human brain and spinal fluid. These investigations were performed by Dr Rick Strassman and documented in his book 'DMT - The Spirit Molecule'. Volunteers were given injections of a measured dose of DMT and asked to report - when they were able - on what they saw and experienced. These included perceptions of spirit-like beings, lizard creatures, insect creatures who seemed to personify a powerful sexual intent, as well as other many spook creatures.
What is remarkable about these experiences is the dichotomy between the fact that the volunteers felt as though they were experiencing undeniably real spooks appearing before them in contexts utterly divorced from their actual surroundings (the University Hospital) and the notion that the volunteers were absolutely aware of the fact that they were tripping. Nonetheless, the DMT hyperspace reality provided the volunteers with numerous insights - both positive and negative - into the nature of reality and the healing power available within their own lives.
Most notable is the report that many of the hyperspace beings not only had the classic spook appearance - large eyes, thin bodies - but also that they sought to examine the volunteers and at times, place implants into their bodies or otherwise modify them so that they could better experience the strangeness of DMT reality. The parallels between these experiences and those of alien abductees is striking. Furthermore, Strassman points out that elevated levels of naturally occurring (endogenous) DMT in the brain are responsible not only for dreams but also for some types human visionary experiences. Thus, dreams could in a sense be classified as a type of hallucination experience.
However, such experiences as DMT and Salvia Divinorum can provide do go beyond the realms of consensus reality - and beyond even dreaming reality - into unknown and apparently uncharted areas of the human psyche. Individual consciousness moves beyond everyday senses into invisible realms, most of which are inhabited. The reactions of the volunteers was often one of inspired creativity, but just as often mystified curiosity or fear, and numerous theories abound as to what these spooks might mean in an evolutionary sense.
And what do they mean? What can it mean for three strangers - salvia beings - simply to appear with no intent but to see or be seen? What purpose can an insect being dwelling in DMT Hyperspace have to appear and modify a volunteer's body so that the trip can be deepened? Perhaps, as Bill Hicks declared in his comedy acts, that such substances are indeed 'accelerator pads for our evolution' and that the trippers experiencing these new beings are beholding the spooks of the future, already enfolded within the human nervous system and ready to appear when society reaches such a stage as they are needed.
(c) Bruce Rimell, June 2005
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